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Comment by mynameismonkey | Hacker News Reader

I used to participate in a city-wide water pistol assassination tournament. Skipped the hard hat, got white coveralls from Home Depot, pinned my work id to it, carried a clipboard. Got in everywhere I needed to be, including a heliport and a private boat dock. I forget where I read it, but the phrase "just act like you're supposed to be there" has stuck with me a long time, and paid dividends.

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as a teenager, i remember marveling at a friend who could successfully walk into bars and order drinks. you have to both look the part and play the part (i could do neither).

even at places that carded, they wanted to serve you, so the ID had to only provide enough plausible deniability to the bouncer or bartender to credibly claim they were duped into serving you. i'm sure some bartenders secretly got a kick out of the cat and mouse game.

In college there was a beer delivery service that would even deliver directly to the dorm if you gave that as your address. If you paid with your debit card over the phone, they wouldn't even card you since the beer was already bought and paid for.

One time they did check, and my friend lied and said he didn't have his ID with him. Then the delivery guy who was probably only a couple years older than us just asked to see his actual underage ID to prove he wasn't a cop and handed us the beer anyway.

> Then the delivery guy who was probably only a couple years older than us just asked to see his actual underage ID to prove he wasn't a cop and handed us the beer anyway.

The liquor enforcement folks (usually not cops, AFAIK) could easily hire someone under 21 to attempt to purchase alcohol. In fact, I'm pretty sure that in some places they do exactly this.

They do get underage folks to try to do either "shoulder tap" operations or direct purchases from vendors. I was asked to do this once as a teenager. I refused, but not before asking a lot of questions about what I'd be doing. I can't say much about the shoulder tap operations, however, I believe there's still a couple of tells for the direct purchase attempts based on the conversations I had:

1. To ensure safety, there will be an adult (undercover cop) nearby. (This could be around the corner, or someplace sneaky, but usually they just pose as another customer.) They probably will maintain pretty close proximity to their underage undercover though.

2. They probably won't give you a fake ID, because it makes it harder to get any sort of definitive enforcement to stick. They aren't trying to catch people that are easily tricked by fake ID's so much as they are trying to catch people that are either knowingly selling booze to underage people or not making any attempt to verify.

So if someone presents a fake ID, even one that's sorta but not totally obvious, that's unlikely to be a sting operation.

3. I believe they typically will actually present ID when asked. Again this helps get charges to stick.

A news article about shoulder tap operations performed by my local police department said:

Police spokesperson Sgt. Riley Harwood said that during such sting operations, the underage decoys are not made to look older with different clothes or make-up, and they’re not taught any strategies of deception. “There are no tricks,” he said, explaining if a decoy is asked for a driver’s license or ID, they hand over a valid card that shows they’re under 21 years old. “There’s no math that needs to be done,” Harwood said of the obvious differences between underage and over-21 IDs. “People just need to do their jobs.”

I worked as a cashier at a place that sold liquor and we would occasionally get decoys. It was usually the same young guy who would try to purchase a single beer, without saying a word.

If the cashier asked for his i.d., the guy would silently hand them card that said something like, "Congratulations, you did not fail the underage liquor sales test", and then leave.

After the 4th or 5th time of the same person trying the same purchase most of the employees learned who he was. I think law enforcement did eventually switch to a different decoy towards the end of my time at the job.

They do actually do this. County sherrif mass emails the county employees if they have any teenage children who wanna ride in a police car for a week once a year as the pitch.

Yeah, that seems like ensuring you get convicted if the guy was a cop. At least without checking his underage id you could claim you believed him.

They just want to fine the business. Arresting delivery drivers for not giving a crap about underage drinking is how you create libertarians and that's the last thing the local police department wants.

Not sure about that. Law enforcement officers are an interesting bunch with a diverse set of views.

>plausible deniability to the bouncer or bartender to credibly claim they were duped into serving you

The "serving alcohol to minors" laws are strict liability in some states, for this reason.

yes, that and making IDs much harder to fake credibly.

What city was this in? Is it in a place where other people have real guns? Is it in a place where the cops have guns?

I both want to play and suspect that it would go really really badly.

For the most part, water pistols look nothing like firearms. I very much doubt that you'd be in danger of being treated as an armed threat when holding a transparent, green, plastic gun that's leaking water.

I dunno. Phones, canes, sunglasses, sandwiches, just hands have been mistaken for guns, with deadly consequences. Perhaps someone doesn't see the object itself, but the way it is being held, or even just reached for.

Especially if the "assassination" attempt involved in the game requires getting into environments you shouldn't be, getting close to someone in an unusual way, I could see this ending in tears even if the water pistol was never visible.

http://www.caralevine.com/this-is-not-a-gun-1 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53d691ede4b0326a80e05...

In NYC its a crime to brandish a toy gun that looks like a real one. That's why all the water pistols are florescent green and orange. It's also a crime to paint a real gun to look like a toy.

Being illegal in NYC is like being known to the state of California for causing birth defects and other reproductive harm. It doesn't actually tell you anything about the matter in question.

* assuming you're white

People have been shot for less

If someone already suspects you have a firearm they don't need evidence... they need an excuse. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin

You are reading into this too much. This is a case of Dead Men Can't Speak. Rather than leave evidence of a crime, opportunity cost of murder is getting off scot-free. The media turned it into primetime theater, but it was never about race. It is about stand your ground and ultimately how the dead can't defend themselves in court.

This is true. The prosecutor should have observed that Stand Your Ground applied to Trayvon Martin who has reasonable belief that he was being pursued by someone intending to do him harm. Martin was not afforded equal protection under the law.

No. Martin is dead. The prosecutor could not bring any affirmative defense for Trayvon Martin because he was not there to argue Stand Your Ground. Hence the statement "dead men can't speak". The prosecutor could and did bring circumstantial evidence, but ultimately Zimmerman could claim stand your ground and successfully argue it.

Whatever else you are applying to the situation is entirely in your mind and does not apply to facts of the case.

yes, Martin is dead and was unable to assert his rights. It then fell to the prosecutor to do so in his stead and he neglected to perform that duty. This is how a grown man was able to pursue a teenager to his home in contravention of the orders from the 911 dispatcher and kill him in the resulting physical confrontation without legal consequences.

Soooo if you cannot assert your rights you cannot stand your ground. What happens when you have two people claiming stand your ground?

Dead men can’t speak. Stand your ground is an affirmative defense. Or in other words, when in Florida carry a big stick and don’t be afraid to use it.

Honest question, are you saying the prosecution should have ignored years of case law and argued on purely circumstantial evidence? (Because Martin’s girlfriend was a baaaaaaaad witness. Like beyond bad. Like I would have been ashamed to have her as my star witness. Why would the one person who could hear the struggle of the fight have an attitude, on the stand, towards the prosecutor fighting for her bf?!?!!)

> What happens when you have two people claiming stand your ground?

One of them initiated the violence or the reason for justified violence, and that person (the aggressor) is in the wrong, generally speaking.

> Dead men can’t speak. Stand your ground is an affirmative defense.

Its an affirmative defense to charges of assault, yes. This is why it applies to Martin even if everything Zimmerman said is true.

> Honest question, are you saying the prosecution should have ignored years of case law and argued on purely circumstantial evidence?

No, they should have relied on the facts not in dispute, which is that Zimmerman followed a person home, that person was unknown to him and had every right to be there, and Zimmerman acted contrary to the wishes of the 911 operator when he exited the safety of his vehicle to pursue a teenager down the path. For this reason, Martin's alleged reaction to attack Zimmerman was an act of self-defense by a cornered juvenile.

> Because Martin’s girlfriend was a baaaaaaaad witness. Like beyond bad. Like I would have been ashamed to have her as my star witness. Why would the one person who could hear the struggle of the fight have an attitude, on the stand, towards the prosecutor fighting for her bf?!?!!

Yes, she was a bad witness because she lacked the signs of class and education that would have made her likely to arise sympathy in the hearts of the audience. and Martin was a bad victim because he was a young, healthy, skinny black kid.

None of that changes the part where an adult male followed a kid home and provoked an assault.

Trayvon Martin assaulted Zimmerman before Zimmerman shot him. This event is not germane to the discussion. No one thought Martin had a gun.

Zimmerman was following him home and Martin had a reasonable belief that he was in danger. Zimmerman was told by the police over the phone to remain in his car and he left his car and pursued Martin as Martin was walking home in a place he had every right to be. Whatever legal protection Zimmerman enjoyed for for being there did not extend to violating the instructions of the police and following a teenager to his home.

Wow that sounds like a ton of fun, could you go into more detail about how that worked?

Brother in law put himself through college working as a plumber at night. Said after that he could go and wasn't afraid to go anywhere.

>I used to participate in a city-wide water pistol assassination tournament

TIL that that's a thing!

This is in that category of activities that I assume no longer exists in a post 9/11 America.

Yes, getting very large tanks of medical grade nitrous oxide for parties worked like that, for me.

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